


If You Want a Rainbow, You Gotta Put Up With The Rain

by vinegardog



Category: Farscape
Genre: Gen, Mindless Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-07
Updated: 2013-05-07
Packaged: 2017-12-10 16:33:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/788135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinegardog/pseuds/vinegardog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is sick.  Aeryn is worried.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Want a Rainbow, You Gotta Put Up With The Rain

Set shortly after Through the Looking Glass and before the events of A Bug’s Life in S1

Some spoilers for S1

Rated PG-13… I don’t know exactly why - mainly for the lustful thoughts I had in writing part of it (the part I am referring to will be abundantly clear to most!).

Word count: about 3400

Sadly the characters, as always, are not mine.

Warning: random, aimless and plot-less fluff! No, actually, in all honesty I think this legitimately graduates to schmaltz! 

Thanks to Irreversibly Contaminated for the test run and for her help with the Americanisms that really don’t come naturally to me! And thanks to A Damned Scientist for finding the time to read this for me even though he was going through a tough spell of RL.

 

If You Want a Rainbow, You Gotta Put Up with the Rain (PG-13)

John eyed the brown, gooey, semi-liquid concoction Chiana was offering him with suspicion bordering on neurosis. 

They had come to this commerce planet on a restocking run and the newest member of the crew, the pretty Nebari fugitive, had somehow managed to drag him away from the others to a food vendor’s stall and dared him to try this… this… this home-world delicacy of hers that looked and smelled uncannily like melted chocolate. Dark, rich, creamy chocolate. Oh God, he knew he should know better, but the pang of homesickness that the aroma of it was inducing in him, made him throw all caution to the wind and drove him headlong into ignoring his own better judgement. Repeating to himself with feigned conviction that trying something new surely would not kill him, John took a good spoonful of the creamy gruel, closed his eyes and swallowed it, all the while mentally patting himself on the back for the bravery and daring he was so valiantly displaying.

A disgusted grimace distorted his handsome features – dark chocolate his ass! Bleurgh! No way! It might smell - even look - like it but this stuff tasted more like… more like… Guinness! He briefly wondered if by any chance the Irish - repeating on an intergalactic level what they had achieved on Earth – had managed to make their way across the universe to this neck of the woods building space stations as they went, weaselling their way into power in the various planetary political establishments by unleashing their blarney-fuelled charm, all the while finding a way to brew the foul, black alcoholic drink they were so fond of… but before he could really finish this thought process, his musings were abruptly cut short by the sudden setting in of horrific stomach cramps. Powerful dry heaves overtook him and rocked his body so violently that with each bout his eyes bulged and the veins in his neck swelled to rope size. 

Alas, although it really tried as hard as it could, his body failed to bring back up what it had swallowed, his stomach churning but refusing to purge itself of the foul substance ingested. 

After a few miserable minutes, John managed to stop retching long enough to lift his head and look around in search of help but two things soon became clear to him: Chiana had suitably made herself scarce and he was pretty much left to face his fate alone since people all around were giving him a wide berth. Although he felt like a knife was slicing slowly through his gut and although he pretty much just wanted to lie down and die, he knew he had no choice: if he wanted to die in familiar surroundings he had to move, so he wretchedly dragged himself back to the pod – a walk that took about five minutes but felt like five hours. Despite his obvious illness, only the most abject begging followed by the all too real threat of extensive fouling of the pod’s interior finally convinced a very irritated D’Argo, left behind to guard the transport, to ferry him back to Moya before returning back down to the planet to collect the rest of the crew at the pre-arranged meeting time.

Once back on board the living ship he now considered home, bent over in pain and feeling very sorry for himself, John shuffled to his quarters, lay on the bed and prayed for merciful, swift death to deliver him from the waves of agony wracking his body. Though – he thought gloomily - given his recent run of luck, he was pretty sure that that was too easy a way out for him to hope for and be granted.

\---------------------------

Two arns later the rest of the shopping party also returned to Moya and, without delay, Pilot starburst them out of that section of space - the Peacekeepers’ hunting parties on their trail an ever present, lurking danger to avoid at all costs. 

After provisions had been stored and duties assigned and D’Argo, Chiana, Zhaan and Rygel had retired to their own quarters for the rest cycle, Aeryn remained alone on Command for the first of the watch shifts. 

Earlier, on the planet, when rendezvousing back at the pod, she had been told by both her Nebari and Luxan crewmates that John had ingested something that had made him ill but she had also been told quite clearly that he was fine and that his histrionics were most likely a pathetic attempt to garner sympathy and were surely greatly exaggerated. She had pretended to believe them but a nagging worry had been making her antsy. 

She knew only too well how ridiculous John could be in his reluctance to eat and drink unfamiliar stuff, so, to say the least, she had been quite surprised to hear that he had tried something new … and off of a street stall of all places! Although – she thought a little sourly and maybe with just the smallest touch of subconscious jealousy – she was pretty sure that the fact that Chiana had offered it to him had probably gone a long way towards dispelling his phobias. 

For some reason completely hazy to her, he seemed to like and have faith in the new girl on the crew in an inexplicable and quite naïve way. When Aeryn had questioned him about it, he had just winked and replied with: “Call it gut instinct, Aeryn, but Chiana’s alright...” Gut instinct! Trust John to just go along with it as if something absolutely reliable, something to live by, something logical never to be doubted!

“Where was your gut instinct, Crichton, when you accepted whatever Chiana offered you to eat on that planet?” Aeryn cattily muttered to herself - a little smirk of satisfaction replacing her worried frown for a short microt. “Being sick serves you right!”

On the other hand – and at this thought the worried frown stubbornly returned to her forehead - she was also pretty sure that John would not have left a planet where everything was a new and fantastical wonder to him without a serious reason… frell it! 

She knew she would not be able to concentrate on her tasks until she found out how he was, so she might as well get it over with.

“Pilot?”

“Yes, Officer Sun, how may I be of help?” At the summons Pilot appeared on the main clamshell on Command.

“Have you heard anything from Crichton since his return from the planet?”

“No, Aeryn, I tried to talk to him when he first arrived back but he only moaned loudly and begged me to leave him alone. I do have a DRD stationed outside his quarters and Moya and I have been hearing a lot of groaning and other noises that we think might be the result of nightmares as well as severe pain. I also offered to send Zhaan to him on her return but my offer did not receive an answer…”

Aeryn sighed. Pilot’s report had only managed to increase her fears and unrest. 

“Very well, Pilot, I will check on him. I’ll be on comms if you need me, please let me know immediately if anything unusual appears on your scanners.”

Pilot nodded his head in acknowledgement before disappearing to return to his duties.

\--------------------------------------

She could hear it all the way from the far end of the sleeping tier. A muffled, drawn out, keening type of moan that reminded her of the nights spent awake in her bunk listening to the sounds of the other cadets’ disturbed sleeps. Sleeps that had often culminated in restless, nightmarish dreams and bed thrashing - their bodies sore and bruised from the brutal daily training and their minds numbed by the hard sessions of memory-erasing raslak-drinking that had followed.

He was balled up on his side, clad in just the short underclothing he so whimsically and inexplicably insisted on calling Calvins. The covers had been kicked off and were lying at the foot of the bed. His arms were instinctively wrapped around his aching stomach even in the unconsciousness of sleep and sweat beaded his feverish brow and stained the low, flat pillow he was resting on.

Aeryn stood at the entrance to his room, uncertain as what to do next. Albeit in an agitated manner, he seemed to be sleeping. Should she let him get whatever rest he could or should she wake him and insist that Zhaan take a look at him? 

She slowly and stealthily took a few steps forward to better assess his condition and came to a stop right by his bedside, her knees almost touching the mattress. While still trying to make up her mind about whether to rouse him or let him be, she unwittingly let her eyes wander from his scrunched up forehead to his full lips, on to his muscular shoulders and wide chest, down to his abs and all the way to his well-defined inguinal muscles dipping and disappearing under the hem of his underwear.

Vivid memories of sensually running her hands along those taut lines during that one rainy night they had spent together on the Ancients’ Earth flooded back unbidden, made stronger, if possible, by the fact that she had tried hard to repress and banish them since their return to Moya.

Still lost in that not so distant time and place, Aeryn failed to notice the sudden, deep silence that now deafeningly filled the air. She slowly let her eyes trail back the way they had come… up to his chest, to his shoulders, to his semi-open lips … all the way up to the wide open sky-blue orbs now staring straight back at her!

Aeryn saw it all unfold in a span of a microt: emotions rolled into one another in fast succession in those perturbing, soul-revealing eyes - those eyes that were forever changing in expression, always so alert, inquisitive, never hiding his state of mind for very long, if at all. 

What she now saw in them was startle, quickly followed by curiosity and finally by gentle mocking, which slowly spread to his lips in the form of a poorly masked, slightly knowing smile.

He had caught her admiring his body and she knew that he knew that she had been thinking about their one night together! Scalding heat rose into her cheeks and she blushed like she had never blushed before. ‘Aeryn Sun, you do NOT blush!’ She wilfully and uselessly admonished herself. 

Her immediate instinct, which she had just barely managed to repress, had been to blurt out some excuse for the focused caressing of his body that she had just performed with her eyes, to babble some sort of made up story to cover up her true thoughts but, as the good fighter pilot and soldier she was, Aeryn Sun knew what a lost battle looked and felt like, so, instead, she stoically stood her ground and continued looking back at him knowing – praying! - that in his chatty, unstoppable way, he would soon break the silence and somehow dispel the embarrassment and tension of the moment.

She had to give it to him, John’s silence lasted a lot longer – an eternity longer – than she had expected but finally in a raspy, sleepy and pain laden drawl he put her out of her misery: 

“Hey!” 

She still thought this form of conversation opener preposterous but this time she felt so desperately grateful for it that she eagerly gave it back to him: “Hey!”

“Whatcha doing?” The twinkle in John’s eyes as he asked this made Aeryn feel irritated and weak at the same time - a contrasting effect that, to her utmost chagrin, this man had had on her since their very first encounter.

“I… I …” she stuttered “I was just checking on you”. When John said nothing, she continued, still not comfortable with silence: “I… I was doing my rounds and I heard you moan, so I came in to see how you were… I heard you ate something that made you ill down on the planet…”

“Yeah, I did.” John scrunched up his face at the memory. “Some brown goo that Chiana swore was a delicacy… but that turned out to be vile! I was an idiot; I should have walked away but what do ya know!”

It was now her turn to do some gentle mocking, so she crossed her arms, raised an eyebrow and asked: “So, why did you eat it if you had doubts about it?”

John rubbed his face with both of his hands to clear his head from the last remnants of sleep and with a forlorn sigh said:

“I dunno, Aeryn. It looked like chocolate and… and it was tempting. As Oscar Wilde said…”

“Uskar Waild? Who’s that? Is that another relative of yours?” His name dropping in conversations never failed to baffle and irritate her.

“No, no!” John lowered his hands from his face and smiled upwards at her in that goofy, irresistible, annoying way of his. “No, Aeryn, Oscar Wilde was an Irish playwright and poet and he famously said ‘The only thing I can’t resist is temptation!’ Well, that was me back on the planet when Chiana offered me something that looked and smelled familiar… I was tempted, so I gave in and took it…”

“Well maybe next time you should forget about what this Uskar Waild said and trust your own instincts, John. That is if you want to survive out here.” She gently scolded. Then she finally asked: “So, how are you feeling now?”

“Oh God, Aeryn, I feel like I have been put through the wringer! At first I was as sick as a parrot and when I finally managed to get some sleep I had the weirdest dreams! Rygel was an evil leprechaun chasing me, cackling and shouting ‘Pog mo thoin’, Zhaan had sprouted long blue hair and was wailing like a banshee foretelling my imminent demise, Pilot…”

Aeryn lifted her right hand and stopped him in mid-sentence: “John, I have no idea what you are talking about! You are blabbering again! I need to finish my rounds… I think that it might be good for you to stretch your legs and maybe get some fluids into your body after being sick. You could keep me company while I finish my inspection and then we can make our way to centre chamber …” She hesitated, feeling that she might have shown too much eagerness in wanting his company “… or not, whatever!” She finished with a shrug of feigned disinterest.

“I’d really like that, Aeryn.” He accompanied his agreement with a delighted smile. “Let me throw on some clothes and I’ll be right with you.” John pushed himself up to a sitting position, swung his legs onto the floor and was pleased to see that the worst of the dizziness had passed He was about to stand up to slip on trousers and a t-shirt when he realized that Aeryn was quietly leaving to give him some privacy. 

“Hey, Aeryn? You can stay, you know. Nothing here you haven’t seen before…” He called out after her in a sing-song tone of voice. 

He saw her spine stiffen and thought that maybe, just maybe, he had just pushed it a little too far and mentally kicked himself. ‘You are a damn idiot, John! Way to go to scare her away, genius!’ 

Aeryn said nothing but instead of walking all the way out of the room, she hovered just inside the entrance, back still turned to him but clearly waiting for him to finish getting dressed. He would not call it a triumph, but he still allowed himself a little internal dance of victory.

Once ready, John joined her and they companionably made their way along Moya’s quiet corridors, stopping every so often to check pressure valves and temperature gauges. 

They didn’t talk much. Instead they just walked and wordlessly enjoyed the easy manner their bodies seemed to fall into synch, both with each other and with the lulling, breathing rhythms of the great ship that cocooned them. 

A pleasant half an arn went by and, as they came to the end of the crew’s usual inspection route, they found themselves right outside Moya’s terrace.

Aeryn made to turn around to head back towards centre chamber but John, not wanting their time together to be over just yet, nudged her gently with his shoulder and nodded towards the big round portal. 

“Hey, wanna check what’s going on outside?”

“I am sure that if anything was ‘going on’ outside, John, Pilot would have commed us to let us know.” Aeryn replied with a touch of sarcasm. She however stopped in her tracks somewhat belying her tone and outward reticence. 

“Come on, don’t be a spoilsport! Let’s go in and have a look!” John took her hand in his and gently tugged her after him. 

Moya was at that moment gliding through a large nebula swirling with a myriad of ionized gases and interstellar dust. Bright, mesmerising colours danced and blended into each other in the vast silence of space making for a magnificent sight. 

Aeryn would normally have been hard pushed to admit it out loud but meeting the Human had made her more aware and sensitive to the beauty of celestial sights such as this, sights that she had always taken for granted before. She now stepped forward lost in admiration at the breath-taking view and came to a stop at the very corner tip of the terrace, back turned to her companion, her lithe figure outlined against the multi-coloured vast background of the nebula. 

John in turn stood and gaped, in awe of both the view and the girl. He suddenly knew without doubt that all the pain he had experienced earlier in the day had been well worth suffering given that, somehow, it had brought the two of them here now, together, alone, in this magical place at this magical time.

“Mmm, this is very pretty, John.” Aeryn said after a few dozen microts had passed in comfortable silence, her voice a mere whisper. “Thank you for insisting that we come in here.”

When she did not receive an answer, she turned and quizzically looked at him with a little tilt of her head before asking:

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what, baby?”

Aeryn frowned at the pet appellation he had started using not so long ago when talking to her but on this occasion decided to let it go:

“You are looking at me with… with… with a foolish half smile… what are you smiling at?” 

“Hey! Less of the foolish, missy! I will have you know that back on Earth this is the smile of a Casanova! Now, if out here in the Uncharted Territories y’all think it looks foolish or goofy… that’s your problem, not mine!” He widened the afore-mentioned smile and winked at her.

Aeryn just shook her head

“Don’t try to confuse me, John, why were you looking at me like that?”

“Oh, no reason…” He hesitated briefly before continuing: “It’s just that the nebula’s colours were refracting off of Moya’s force field and for a moment there it just looked… it just looked like you were standing at the end of a rainbow, that’s all!”

“A rainbow? What’s that?”

“A rainbow is a planetary phenomenon that, when conditions are right, can sometimes be seen after it rains… the colours of the spectrum are refracted through the water particles in the air and create a spectacular light display. You remember the rain, right?” 

The memory of Aeryn, head tilted up tasting the rain with the tip of her tongue while they were on the run on the Ancient’s Earth, was one of John’s favourite and most cherished ones… one of the many images of hers he had filed away in his brain and one that he liked to revisit and linger on in peace and quiet, mainly in the privacy of his quarters.

“And why does that make you smile?”

“Oh nothing… on Earth there is this saying about what can be found at the end of a rainbow… but I don’t think you would understand what it means in this context, not yet anyway…” He quickly closed the gap between them and preventing whatever she had been about to say to express her righteous indignation at his comment, he took her hand and gently turned her around to face the nebula again. He encircled her waist from behind with his arms, rested his chin on her shoulder and murmured in her ear:

“Hey, I think I said it once before but this is not too shabby a way to end a day, Aeryn.”

The end


End file.
